1.09.2006

This has been around awhile, but... yeesh: While at DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo wrote the infamous memo OKing government-sponsored torture. Now he's on record--and tape--stating that it's OK to torture a child, even if the method is squashing said child's gonads.

Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty

Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Even Angela Merkel, conservative German chancellor, is more humane than the compassionate conservatives stateside. She told Der Spiegel, "There was a similar debate in Germany over the 2002 kidnapping of Jakob von Metzler, the banker's son. The issue then was whether it is legitimate to threaten or use torture to save the life of a child. The public debate showed that the overwhelming majority of citizens believed that even in such a case, the end does not justify the means. That is also my position."